CIRG 644 - Julia Manns - Module 5

CIRG 644 – Julia Manns – Module 5

Assignment: Imagine you are a meteorologist tasked with creating a journal entry explaining the water cycle that will be presented to a second grade class. The journal entry must include all the steps of the water cycle, as well as brief explanations/descriptions of each step. Remember: these students may never have studied the water cycle before. The only information they have about it is the information you present to them through your journal entry! Use the checklist below to help you when writing your journal entry:

What’s your Role: ___________________

What’s your Audience: ___________________

What’s your Format: ___________________

What’s your Topic: ___________________

What’s your Strong verb: ___________________

(Note: This activity would be designed for a 4^th-5^th grade student)

SAMPLE

What’s your Role: Meteorologist

What’s your Audience: 2nd Grade Classroom

What’s your Format: Journal Entry

What’s your Topic: The Water Cycle

What’s your Strong verb: Explaining

(Note: information for this Water Cycle journal entry was obtained from the following website: http://www.kidzone.ws/water/ You can create more restrictions for how much students are able to cite from websites and books when having them complete this sort of activity.)

June 27, 2015

My curiosity has finally gotten the best of me! I simply must know how water turns to rain!! I’ve heard other meteorologists talking about something called ‘The Water Cycle’. They say it explains the entire process—what a nifty idea! I’ve been researching it for a few days now and I think I finally understand how it all works! The first step is Evaporation, which is when the sun heats up water in rivers, lakes, or oceans and turns it into vapor, or steam. You know that stuff that comes up from a pot of boiling water? That’s the stuff! The water vapor, or steam, leaves the river, lake, or ocean and goes into the air. Imagine that! Transpiration helps out his buddy evaporation, causing plants to lose water out of their leaves, giving his old buddy a hand in getting all of that water vapor back up into the air! 

*Shivers* It’s getting colder in here! That must mean it’s time for our next step: Condensation. Water vapor in the air gets cold and changes back into liquid, forming clouds. This process is called condensation! Imagine pouring a cold glass of water on a hot day. Those tiny water spots that appear on the outside of the class actually came from the air! Water vapor in the warm air turns back into liquid when it touches the cold glass. Better have an umbrella handy for this next step: Precipitation. This occurs when so much water has condensed that the air cannot hold it anymore! The clouds get very heavy, and the water falls back down to Earth in the form of rain, hail, sleet, or even snow.

Our final step in the Water Cycle is Collection. Now that we have some precipitation going, where does all that rainwater go? It doesn’t just disappear after falling, does it? Why no! Some of this rain falls into oceans, lakes, and rivers—sound familiar? You’re correct—we are back at step one, Evaporation, all over again! The cycle repeats itself over and over again—how mind-blowing is that?! With all of this new information in my brain I think I should go outside and try to observe the Water Cycle at work!!